1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the field of communications. More specifically, the invention relates to communications over networks.
2. Background of the Invention
Data can be transmitted to multiple clients in a network by broadcasting the data, multicasting the data, or unicasting the data to each client. Unicasting the data to each client involves addressing the data to each client and transmitting the data repeatedly for each client. Broadcasting involves transmitting data to a broadcast address (e.g., 255.255.255.255) to be received by all clients in the network. Multicasting involves transmitting data to a predefined multicast address to be received by the clients in the network configured to listen for data transmitted to the multicast address. In addition, all routers and switches throughout the network are configured to forward or block broadcasting or multicasting.
Unicasting the data to each client unnecessarily consumes bandwidth. The amount of wasted bandwidth increases proportionally with the size of the data and the number of clients. Moreover, the time required to unicast a large amount of data to a large number of clients is prohibitive. Attempts to broadcast or multicast the data can be frustrated by network configurations chosen by network administrators. A network administrator can configure their routers and/or switches not to support broadcast or multicast or limit the amount of support across their network because of the potential for broadcast and/or multicast storms.